


Veiled Meanings

by tomanonuniverse



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Cute, Don't copy to another site, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Kissing, Love Confessions, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Not Really Character Death, Past Character Death, Rare Pairings, Self-Sacrifice, Stabbing, Swearing, Unconsciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24229825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomanonuniverse/pseuds/tomanonuniverse
Summary: She’s not even aware of how far she walks through the forest, too lost in her own thoughts and memories. It’s not until she hears what sounds like soft hiccuping does she stop. Her heart twists in her chest and she sighs.“Dwight?” She calls softly, to which the hiccups promptly stop. For a moment, it’s silent, then she hears scrambling before the man of the hour finally pops out from behind a particularly thick tree.“Nea,” he breathes, like he didn’t expect to ever see her standing in front of him again. Then his bottom lip quivers and his eyes water and he slams his face into his hands, nearly breaking the frames of his glasses in the process. “Oh, God, Nea… I-I’m so, so sorry!”The woman blinks. What?
Relationships: Dwight Fairfield/Nea Karlsson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Veiled Meanings

**Author's Note:**

> we all die u either write rarepair fanfic or get killed [slamming noises] whatchu gon do
> 
> seriously why does this keep happening to me send help

Nea eyelids begin to slide open and the first thing she’s hyper-aware of is the throbbing ache gripping the entirety of her back. As she slowly comes back to, her vision clears just enough for her to be able to see whose lap her head was currently set on. She’s not surprised in the slightest to find herself looking up at David King, who stares down at her with furrowed brows. 

Instantly, she groans. “Ugh, why does  _ your  _ ugly mug have to be the first face I see when I wake up?”

David’s shoulders drop and he laughs a little too relievedly. “Good t’have y’back, luv,” he greets with a pat to her hair. Nea pushes herself up and groans again at the piercing pain that shoots through her head. Waking up back at the campfire after dying in a trial was never easy. It was like waking up from a hangover, except the night before wasn’t the fun kind of crazy that usually came with one. 

“What happened out there? Y’were out for a bit,” he inquires. She raises an eyebrow at the question. He should already know what happened, but there’s this look on his face she can’t quiet place that makes her feel compelled to properly answer the unnecessary question instead of flipping him off. 

She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “Got “moried” by Ghostface,” she recalls, reaching behind herself and rubbing her still aching back. The killer liked to stab his victims up to three times then take a picture with their corpses. She shudders to think of the fact that he now has yet another picture of her among the many he already took. 

Suddenly, though, her eyes snap open and her head whips towards David. “Wait, where’s Dwight?” She asks, chest tight as she scans the campfire, finding no signs of their nervous leader. Her friend sighs and crosses his arms, which has her turning back to him with a look that demands an explanation. 

“He’s been hidin’ out in the woods since he woke up,” he informs almost sadly. “Wouldn’ talk to anybody ‘bout anythin’, jus’ ran off ‘n told us not to follow’im. I was hopin’ you would be able to tell me what’s got’im so rattled? I’ve never seen’im like this before. I don’ like it.”

Nea sighs exhaustedly and rubs her eyes with her palms, shaking her head. “I need to find him first,” she murmurs, so quietly David barely catches it. “Can you tell me which direction he went in?” She asks, to which the Brit lazily points his thumb behind himself. Nea throws him a quick thanks and wobbles to her feet, walking out into the forest surrounding the survivors’ campfire. 

It was never quite clear to them what the rules of the realm were outside of the trials. They didn’t stray too far from the campfire in the first place, but those that did occasionally encountered the Killers. Though, they don’t attempt to take their lives as they usually do. They either scare them off or hurt them just enough to make them go away. Almost as if they weren’t allowed to kill them out of trials.

The notion had multiple theories spiraling within the Survivors, but only one really stood out. The Killers weren’t allowed to kill Survivors outside of trials because that means they die for good, which means the Entity (or whatever the thing that brought them here is actually called) has one less Survivor to feed off of. 

The graffiti artist mostly went with the theory and didn’t really go too deep in the woods, unlike some of the others who didn’t give a damn. But with Dwight out there all on his own, she wouldn’t risk trusting the Killers not to hurt him, no matter what their orders were. She has a bit of a soft spot for him and it shows. Then again, who doesn’t?

_ Fucking Min, apparently,  _ she thinks to herself, frowning in distaste. They wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place if Feng Min hadn’t been her selfish self. Min was never a team-player, that much everyone already knew. But with Detective Tapp dead within the first few minutes of the trial and Dwight struggling with the Entity on a hook as Ghostface watched, Nea didn’t expect the Asian girl to continue working on the generators throughout the whole ordeal, open an exit gate, and simply leave, regardless of who she left behind.

Nea, of course, wouldn’t leave Dwight to die. She hadn’t been hooked the entire trial and she knew she had a good chance of saving him  _ and  _ getting out alive herself. Except when she went to unhook him, Ghostface had been waiting for her ever so patiently. He takes her down in an instant, which she knows is the work of the Entity. She hadn’t seen any lit totems on her way there, but it wasn’t like she had time to look, seeing as Min had set off the timer when she opened the door. 

Dwight cried out her name in despair as he continued to struggle. Nea had shut her eyes and set her forehead on the ground, not wanting to watch her friend die because she failed to save him. She wished Ghostface would pick her up so she could stab him with the shard of glass she’d brought with her, but instead, she felt him straddle her from behind and she knew what would happen next.

She tried not to scream when he stabbed her, she really did, but it still  _ hurts  _ no matter how many times you get stabbed before. He yanked her beanie off of her head and grabbed her by the hair, taking a picture with her as she choked on her own blood. The last thing she remembers seeing was Dwight looking down at her in absolute horror before his grip on the Entity slips and he’s stabbed through the torso by the dark spider-like limb. 

She’s not even aware of how far she walks through the forest, too lost in her own thoughts and memories. It’s not until she hears what sounds like soft hiccuping does she stop. Her heart twists in her chest and she sighs. 

“Dwight?” She calls softly, to which the hiccups promptly stop. For a moment, it’s silent, then she hears scrambling before the man of the hour finally pops out from behind a particularly thick tree.

“Nea,” he breathes, like he didn’t expect to ever see her standing in front of him again. Then his bottom lip quivers and his eyes water and he slams his face into his hands, nearly breaking the frames of his glasses in the process. “Oh, God, Nea… I-I’m so, so sorry!”

The woman blinks. What?

Dwight doesn’t explain because he’s sobbing in earnest, fat tears rolling down his face as he desperately wipes at them with his hands. “Hey, no, come on. C’mere,” Nea says, grabbing his hands with her own and pulling them away from his face so she can see him. “Dwight, what’re you even talking about? What’re you sorry for? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He looks at her like she grew a second head. “D-Didn’t do anything wrong?” He echoes in disbelief, then snatches his hands back and wraps them around himself. “I… I did  _ everything  _ wrong! If I hadn’t been so fucking  _ stupid, _ Ghostface wouldn’t have managed to stalk me for so long without me noticing and put me on the hook again!”

Hearing the innocent man curse was almost jarring. Nea’s brows furrowed in concern and a pit grew in her stomach. “Dwight, that’s—”

“You wouldn’t have needed to come back for me! He wouldn’t have killed you  _ right in front of me _ while I couldn’t do  _ anything  _ about it and you wouldn’t have had to die for  _ no fucking reason!” _

_ “Stop!”  _ She snaps, bringing his hysterical rambling to a halt. He stares back at her with wide, glistening eyes, sniffling every other second or so, eyes puffed and nose and cheeks reddened. “You’re  _ not  _ stupid and it  _ wasn’t  _ for no reason. What’s this really about? This isn’t the first time one of us has died in a trial and it won’t be the last. It doesn’t matter.”

Dwight bristles at the words.  _ “Of course it matters!”  _ He shouts, startling the Swedish woman. “You fucking  _ died  _ because of me, Nea! You don’t think that matters to me?!”

“Okay, first of all, I didn’t die because of you,” she corrects, still bewildered by how irrationally upset he was over it all. “I was careless and I should’ve known—”

_ “No!  _ You’re not  _ listening to me!”  _ Dwight interrupts, seemingly growing more frustrated by the second. “You could’ve gotten away, you could’ve lived, but you had to sacrifice your life to try to save mine.  _ God,  _ Nea, I can’t get the scene out of my head. I watched him kill you and it was  _ my fault _ and I can’t… I can’t  _ handle  _ that.  _ You mean too much to me _ for me to be able to just take that. I can’t.”

This is the part where Nea would calmly begin explaining to Dwight how the situation wasn’t his fault and that he shouldn’t blame himself for something that was clearly so very out of his hands. But she finds her words catching in her throat as he speaks, staring at her so openly and vulnerably that it was  _ impossible  _ for her not to realize what the veiled meaning of what he’d said was. 

It must show on her face because the ground suddenly becomes very interesting to him. “I… I know I shouldn’t be feeling like this,” he admits hesitantly, and Nea takes the confirmation with a sharp inhale. “The last thing anyone needs while we’re literally running for our lives every other minute is a stupid...  _ romance...  _ but I care about you  _ so much, _ Nea. I— I couldn’t stop myself from falling in love with you.”

Nea stares up at him with wide eyes and jaws agape. She doesn’t doubt that she looks dumb as all hell while she looks at him like a fucking fish but she can’t bring herself to make a single sound. The man had just  _ confessed his love  _ for her, and all she could do was hold onto the cloth of his shirt to keep herself upright.

The silence stretches for far too long because Dwight begins pulling away from her, eyes stinging with tears once more as he shuts them, ashamed. “I… I-I’m s-sorry,” he stammers brokenly. “I sh-shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have t-told you that. I know y-you don’t feel that way about me a-and I’m s-sorry. I’m s-so sor—”

Dwight finds himself abruptly silenced by the slam of lips against his own. His eyes snap open in shock and he looks down to find Nea’s mouth pressed against his, her eyes closed as she moves her lips as deeply into his as she could. His brain completely short circuits and he finds that he’s completely unable to do anything but stand there and stare at her until she pulls away and the kiss is over. 

Again the quiet of the night overwhelms the two, only now Nea’s staring at him with a soft smile. She lets go of the collars of his shirt and slides her hands up to caress his tear-stained face. Dwight stares back at her, heart pounding so hard it felt like it would burst from his chest. He’s unable to form any coherent sentences, so the only thing that leaves him is a faint whisper of her name.

“If you say “I’m sorry” one more time, I’m gonna think you’re apologizing for caring about me, like that’s a bad thing,” she murmurs. 

He can tell it’s meant to be a joke from the teasing tone in her voice but he still panics anyway. “N-No! I didn’t mean—!”

“Dwight,” she stops him, and his teeth clack together as he shuts his mouth. “Stop thinking so much about everything, okay? Let’s go back to camp.”

Wait, what?

_ “What?”  _ Dwight voices his thoughts of confusion very eloquently, blinking rapidly. “What do you mean “let’s go back to camp?” You just— What about— What does—  _ Why did you kiss me?” _

Nea gives him a strange look, like he’d said something silly. “Why do people usually kiss other people, Dwight?” She asks cryptically, tilting her head with a smirk. Upon his lack of an answer, Nea laughs and shakes her head. “I like you, Dwight. And seeing as you just told me that you liked me too, I kissed you.”

His eyes nearly bulge out of his sockets. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  _ “You do?”  _ He inquires disbelievingly, looking down at himself as if to check that this  _ was  _ indeed himself in his body that she was referring to. How could she possibly like  _ him? _

She seems to notice his inner dilemma  _ (had she always been so good at reading him like he was an open book?)  _ and grabs his attention by grabbing his chin and steeling his gaze to hers. “Hey,” she calls sternly, “that wasn’t a pity kiss. I really do like you, Dwight. A lot. I won’t say love because I’m not quite there,  _ not yet.  _ But I wouldn’t have risked my life to save you if I thought so little of you. Give me some credit here.”

“R-Right!” He stammers. “S-Sor—”

_ “Hup!”  _ Nea quips, putting a finger over his lips. “What did we say? No apologizing.”

Dwight swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he glances down at her hand. Red flushes his cheeks and he nods meekly, to which she laughs again and pulls her hand away to instead grab one of his. As she begins dragging him back to the survivors’ campfire, Dwight freezes for a brief moment.

“Hey, w-wait!” He exclaims, tugging at their joined hands. Nea turns to him with a curious look, tilting her head in a stupidly cute manner he can’t help stuttering as he continues to speak. “Can we. C-Can we t-try that again? The— The kiss. I wasn’t, uh, ready. I… I want to kiss you again. Can I kiss you again?”

The pools of pink that dust her cheeks bring out her bright, shy grin all the more. “Of course,  _ babe,” _ she tells him, and he pretends that his insides don’t do somersaults at the pet-name. He cups her cheek with his free hand and slowly draws her face to his, like he was giving her a chance to back out at any moment.

But Nea’s big blue eyes just keep looking up at him so expectantly so he finally connects their lips again. It’s not clumsy and one-sided like their first one.  This time, Dwight snakes his arm around her waist as she wraps her own around his shoulders, pulling him down into the kiss. They’re both smiling into it, can feel it on each other’s lips.

The only reason that would ever make them part was their need for air so they pull away to pant for breath. Nea gives him what looks like an impressed look and he feels his stomach’s butterflies flapping about again. He was so helplessly smitten with her, and the thought that she had feelings for him as well? It had him soaring through clouds. He was untouchable. 

_ “Now _ we can go back to camp,” he tells her with a smirk, to which she snorts and pulls him down to kiss again.


End file.
